


Once More, With Feeling

by KBZ



Category: Eyeshield 21
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Dark Comedy, Gen, Gore, Magical Realism, Mystery, Pining But Not Yet, Supernatural romance, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KBZ/pseuds/KBZ
Summary: Things aren’t going well for Sena—he has a dead end job, he has no love life, and he didn’t get accepted into any universities. He gets mixed up in a ritual gone wrong, and now he’s dead… except he’s not. Well, nothing like second chances right?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Once More, With Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> This was written on ff.net a while ago......... and never gotten past chapter 1, maybe I'll have better luck this time around.

Sena wakes up in the dark. Incredibly dark. It’s warm but strangely cool at the same time around him. He blinks slowly (with no change in perceived darkness).

His hands travel up and press against the silken lining hanging inches from his face. He feels along his arms, find the sleeves of a jacket. A suit. He’s wearing a suit. His _only_ suit—the black one that he had to get hemmed and let in because it was too big.

It’s then that it sets in that he’s in a coffin.

 _But, I’m not dead_ , Sena thinks, but even he can tell that he’s trying to convince himself of that fact.

He presses his hands against the lining of the coffin again. It’s soft. Feels expensive.

 _Oh no… no, no, no… my parents…_ His parents don’t deserve the death of their only child (no matter how useless and stupid he may be) and they certainly don’t deserve the cost of a funeral. He imagines them sallower looking: his dad with more wrinkles and his mom with dark circles underneath her eyes.

He wants to cry. He _should_ be crying, but his eyes don’t fill with tears and his throat doesn’t close up like it usually does when he’s stressed.

And… he isn’t… he’s not really acting like himself, is he? He’s always been one easy to panic. He’s little more than a walking bundle of nerves and anxieties. Everything feels dull, faraway, but he should be screaming for help, he’s buried alive after all. But…

…there’s a thought…

He’s not dead, but is he alive? He hasn’t taken in a breath the whole time since waking up. Images flash through his mind—of candles and fire and the glint of a knife—swiftly, like sharp-edged butterflies _. I think, that… I’d rather not think about how I got here…_ Instead he starts scraping against the coffin.

The good thing about being buried is that there’s really only one way to go. Up.

_Sena Kobayakawa_

_December 21 st, 19-- - September 8th, 19--_

_Dearly missed, but never forgotten…_

_I don’t like that_ , Sena thinks, looking at his tombstone.

His parents hadn’t been able to afford a plot in the nicest cemetery. The tombstones around Sena’s are modest at best and most have cracks and chips from the elements. His grave is at the cusp of the cemetery chain link fence. The fence does a poor job of keeping the encroaching plants back. There’s tendrils of weeds snaking their way near his grave already.

A clump of earth falls from his muddy fingers and onto the dew-dotted grass. He keeps rereading the brass placard but the words don’t change—it just glints back up at him in the moonlight, accusingly. He takes another deep breath and starts packing the dirt back in its place. He pauses filling up his grave and stares at his hands.

Among one handful of dirt is a wilting chrysanthemum.

“Oh…” Sena’s voice is thick. His parents, thin and sallow, two small bundles in the autumn chill, coming to visit their son and leaving flowers. _How long have they been visiting? How long have I…?_ He has no idea what the date is. His suit has a few holes in it and his hair keeps brushing into his eyes but it couldn’t have been that long…

Maybe… maybe it wasn’t his parents that visited but—what if it was…? No… He turns back to his grave. It’s messy, but less terrifying and more inconspicuous than having a broken out of grave.

He stumbles out of the cemetery, his legs clumsy from disuse. He’s in a residential area that he’s never been in. Or that he can’t remember being in. He cradles his arms around himself. He wants to see his parents again. His father will be calm, surely, while his mother will bluster with emotion. He did get that from her, after all. He decides to pick a direction and just jog until he sees something recognizable, some commercial center, maybe, or a twenty-four hour convenience store.

He runs for a long time. His breath never quickens, his sides never cramp, he doesn’t scare at the dark shadows. He doesn’t question that. There _is_ that small voice in his head asking all the right questions, of course, but things are much easier when he ignores it—

“Uff—!” Sena sprawls over the ground. The pavement scrapes against his cheek. As Sena sits up, he rubs tentatively at it but the skin hasn’t broken.

“Watch where you’re going,” the guy begins before taking a closer look at Sena. A cigarette trembles between his lips. “What the hell, dude, you look a fucking mess!”

(They’re in poor lighting, so the guy hasn’t even seen the worst of it.)

“Ah, yeah, I was… um, in an accident and… I’m trying to—to get home.”

“We need to get you to an emergency room!” The guy picks Sena up easily with one hand, the other holding a canned drink.

“No, no, no! I, er, just really need to get home!”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Sena stifles a nervous laugh. “It’s been… a while.” The guy hands over his drink. Despite it being canned, the drink isn’t cold. Sena’s not a picky eater but his stomach rolls at the thought of drinking, what is now, tepid hot chocolate.

“Drink that shit, it’ll warm you right up. Just bought it.” The drink is definitely not hot, but the guys doesn’t look like someone Sena wants to argue with. “Grade schoolers have no business being out so late.”

“Umm, I’m eighteen, actually,” Sena mumbles.

The guy looks at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed. He takes another drag of his cigarette. “Drink that or I’m going to get pissed off.”

Sena takes a hurried gulp. The effect is instantaneous. The drink is viscous and revolting. He gags it back up along with whatever had been in his stomach, and throws up on the curb.

“Oh, shit,” the guy says, alarmed and concerned. “You need help.”

“No, please I—I just need to get home.”

“Okay, okay, where do you live?”

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Sena tells him. “It’s by Deimon high school.”

“Yeah, I used to go there. The walk’s not too bad.” The guy throws away the drink and puts out his cigarette. “Let’s go. I’m Jumonji Kazuki.”

“I’m… pleased to meet you.” It’s probably best not to use his real name until he’s talked with his parents.

Jumonji doesn’t miss the fact that Sena didn’t introduce himself judging by the blunt line of his mouth. Jumonji seems to choose his words carefully. “Never saw you at school.”

“Ah… it’s… I’m just visiting relatives…”

“You remind me of someone,” Jumonji says abruptly, staring openly at Sena now.

“Oh?” Sena keeps his gaze down.

“He… passed away a while ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. D-did you go to the funeral?” Sena asks quietly.

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have. We weren’t friends. Never even spoke to each other, but I kinda…”

Sena’s stomach growls fiercely. A stab of hunger spikes through his stomach, a pain so bright and intense that it’s all Sena can do to not double over. Jumonji’s hands are on his shoulders, steadying him. Sena blinks, Jumonji’s concerned face turns to the side anxiously, exposing his thick neck where there are a few dull red nicks from shaving. There’s another swell of mouth-watering hunger. By now, Sena recognizes the streets so he pulls away and huddles into himself.

“I can go from here,” he says. His voice is weak and quiet, barely brushing past his lips.

“Are you sure, kid?” Jumonji swallows thickly, and Sena has never felt such hunger in his life.

“Y-yeah, I…” Sena takes a steadying breath, but it only makes him more unsteady. There’s some delicious smell in the air that he can’t put his finger on. His fingers are trembling when he brushes the hair from his eyes.

“But—”

Sena runs across the street and ducks into an alleyway before Jumonji can say anymore. He hopes that they’ll never meet again.

Sena pauses at the front gate of his house before opening the creaking latch and letting himself in. The yard has signs of neglect with drying grass and wilting flowers. It’s pretty late at night, so his parents are asleep. He reaches inside one of the potted plants and takes out the extra house key. At least some things don’t change.

All the lights are out. He takes off his shoes in the entryway and stands stiffly for a few seconds. It feels ridiculous, but he feels like he’s intruding. And maybe he is. He is dead, after all, maybe. He tiptoes up the stairs, skips the squeaky fifth step, and pads in to the restroom.

His hair has grown shaggy and drops over his eyes, and there’s awkward and unflattering stubble below his nose. His suit is a little yellow and shabby, smudged with mud and grime from climbing out… of… his grave… his hands are a mess as well…

It’s little surprise that Jumonji didn’t recognize him. Thinking of Jumonji makes hunger swell in his throat again so instead he resolves to clean himself. He runs a shower and shaves while he waits for the water to heat up, but it never does. It’s not cold, just lukewarm. Sena sighs, undressing.

He catches sight of his body in the mirror and freezes.

There’s black swirling lines all over his body. They snake their way down his arms and legs. There’s some star shape drawn precisely over his heart and words he doesn’t understand over his chest. On his back is a roiling of spindly lines. The effect almost make him nauseous.

Twenty minutes later, he’s wiping condensation from the mirror, feeling marginally better. He wishes the shower could have been hotter, and there’s a smell form his skin that he wasn’t able to get rid of no matter how much he scrubbed. He wraps a towel around himself and steps into his room.

There’s the clear sense that no one has entered his room for a long time. Some of his things are packed in boxes, but a thin layer of dust covers the rest of his belongings. His baby pictures are noticeably absent from the walls, leaving discolored shapes where they had hung. He opens his dresser. All his clothes are still there and he slips on his comfiest stretch pants and sweatshirt, hiding the tattoos.

There’s a family portrait on his desk. His hands shake as he reaches for it and then—

He drops it.

The crashing noise isn’t loud but it is very _loud_ and then—

“Who—?” The groggy voices of his parents—

“Mom…” he can’t help but say—

“Honey, who…?” His father’s voice, tired from more than just poor sleep.

Hid bedroom door opens.

“Dad…”

“Darling, what—?”

Sena has never seen fear so clearly and fully than when his parents look at their dead son, back from the grave.

Shuuma stumbles to the side, his eyes wide and shaking. His whole body trembles and he’s making these awful half-choked, half-keening sounds. Shuuma’s face goes red, then purple, and then blue as frothing spit dribbles from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, _God_! Shuuma!” His mother’s voice is broken. She kneels next to her husband and watches the light blink away from his eyes. “Oh, God…” Her eyes are wet when she turns to glare back at Sena. “Who… what are you?”

“Mom—”

“No,” she says harshly. “My Sena died three months ago.” She grabs onto Shuuma and tries to pull him away from the crumpled heap he fell in. “Whatever… whatever you are now is _not_ my Sena. Not anymore, and… and…” She wipes her eyes quickly.

“I’m… can we talk?” Sena takes a step closer, but Mihae recoils so sharply that she drops Shuuma’s head from where she was cradling it between her hands. “Mom, please… I’m scared…”

Deep down, Mihae is still a mother. “Okay,” she says, her voice gaining strength despite her dewy eyes. “Okay.” She moves Shuuma to the side with some difficulty, and goes down the stairs to the kitchen. Her face is a pale green as she pours herself a glass of water. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“I woke up today. And I was… in a coffin. Um,” Sena steps closer, hands slightly outstretched. He feels so small. He wants to be held.

Mihae’s grip on her glass becomes white-knuckled. “Stop. Don’t.”

“What happened t-to me, mom? There’s all these—these marks and,” Sena reaches forward and places his hand against hers.

The cup shatters in Mihae’s grip, glass imbedding itself into her fingers. Bright red blood spouts from her skin. Sena can’t help himself. There’s hunger worse than before, worse than anything. He feels inhuman, empty, hallow, h—

Hungry.

Mihae lets out a small cry of pain. She turns and dumps the shards of glass in the sink, flinching when she unclenches her hands. Her back is to Sena—and maybe that is Sena, maybe she hasn’t lost all of her world, maybe she can keep one of her precious people—when her neck-hairs stand on end. The whole time she is trying to pick out glass from her hands, so she doesn’t react fast enough. Each piece of glass is a tiny pinprick of pain and there’s one piece that particularly hurts that she—just—can’t—seem—to get—and she needs to call an ambulance soon.

She barely manages to turn in time to see Sena lunge for her neck.

There’s a jagged pain along her throat and she feels a _tear_.

“Sena…” she gurgles, every ragged breath heaving a new wave of hot, boiling pain in her throat. “S… s…”

Sena chews, first along his mother’s neck, and then he tears into her cheek. She’s hissing something at him, but he’s not sure if it’s his name or a plea to stop. He doesn’t think he _can_ stop. He drinks her warm blood one greedy swallow after another and…

He’s crying.

There’s tears and there’s warmth on his lap from where his mother’s severed arm rests and there’s feeling seeping back in to his being, slowly, _slowly_ , but it’s there. The more he drinks and the more eats, the more alive he feels. He cringes as he digs at his mother’s breast—scraping past the fat and breaking her white ribs to get, at last, to her red, warm heart.

He eats it like an apple, between sobs.

He sees Pitt cowering from him in the corner of the kitchen. She won’t come near him. He doesn’t blame her.

He pours her some dry food and fills her water bowl, aware that he can’t stay here.

He packs into a duffle: toothbrush, phone charger, underwear, socks, a change of clothes. He drops his ID in there, too, after a moment of hesitation. His bloodied clothes are in the washing machine. He takes money from his father’s wallet, and covers his cooling corpse with a blanket. He does the same for his dismembered mother.

He exits out of the back door, slipping on his winter jacket and running shoes.

“Don’t move.” The voice has authority laced through each word. Sena hasn’t even finished closing the door, still choking back tears. “Now put that backpack down—slowly. Good. Turn around slowly. Slower. Hmm.”

There’s something appreciative in the man’s golden eyes as he looks Sena up and down. His brows furrow slightly when he notices Sena’s teary eyes.

“Take your jacket off.”

“I—”

“The ambulance is less than three minutes away. Do you really want to be here and explain what happened in there?”

“I d-didn’t mean to! I k… _ate…_ ” He’s hiccupping his words, trying to keep himself from breaking down. The man closes the distance between them and takes hold of Sena’s hand. “W-what’s happening?”

The man rolls up Sena’s sleeves. His eyes bore holes into his skin. His thumb brushes against one of the marks.

“Thought I knew but…” the man sweeps his thumb across Sena’s cheek, wiping away a tear. He rubs his fingers together, frowning. “Now I’m not so sure.”

Both of them perk up at the sound of sirens.

“I need help,” Sena whispers fervently, his eyes beading with tears. A tremor runs through him.

“I need your name.”

“S-Sena—”

“Call me Takeru. Let’s go.”


End file.
